Nine
by Ithilwen K-Bane
Summary: As if another alien incursion weren't enough, the events of Infinity War reach Brooklyn. You can set a whole life in motion with one breath, if you know who you're talking to. MASSIVE SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War.
1. Nine

As if another alien incursion wasn't enough, the events of Infinity War reach Brooklyn. You can set a whole life in motion with one breath, if you know who you're talking to.

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"He can't go through it again. Promise me you'll—" And that was it.

An hour later, he was fighting the urge to kick in the door. Half the city was screaming and that made it too quiet. He found the key.

"Genevieve?" he called out, ducking past gleaming pots and pans.

Then, like a mouse breathing into a vent: "Mom's not here."

"Nicolaj," he said, stepping over a chair. It was upturned, like someone had pushed it over to see if anyone was hiding underneath. Nicolaj was sitting on the floor, paint on his glasses, a barely touched easel behind him. He was holding her brush.

No smile. No "Uncle Jake." No correcting his pronunciation.

"Why isn't Papa with you?"

It was time to be Rosa. It was time to be Holt. It was time to show what would help and nothing else.

For all the over-the-top hero worship, Charles Boyle had always known exactly who Jake Peralta was. So it only took nine words, like nine starter brush strokes, to show what it would look like when it all filled in: A kid, and the one guy in the picture who knew why you couldn't get left.

Jake held out his hand. Be Terry. "We're going back to the station for now. Once things settle down, you'll come stay with me."

Nicolaj looked up. "You mean with you and Amy?"

Be Charles.

"No."

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drf24k


	2. Brooklyn

Nicolaj looked over his shoulder to the couch, pencil still on his homework.

"Why does Auntie Gina sleep all the time?"

"She misses Baby Iggy."

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There were scratch marks on the door. He'd tried to get out. Probably that day it rained.

(They wouldn't find him by the door. He was upstairs, on the sweaters.)

No one had wanted to go to the house. Like a dish once all the water had evaporated, they'd thought of Holt and Kevin's brownstone as empty.

.

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"My dad and I are doing game night again. Says he doesn't want to miss any more time."

"That's good."

She twisted her coffee cup on her desk.

"Your mom would have come around eventually, Rosa."

"Yeah well I'm never going to know, am I?"

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.

"Okay. So on Saturday I'll take everyone to the park while you do your grocery shopping and on Sunday you'll take Nicolaj with you and the girls to weekly memorial while I run errands." Jake swung the binder shut with one hand. "Communal parenting is easy!"

"Uh," said Terry, "I thought I would take Lacey and Ava to see their grandmother on Sunday. Nicolaj can still come," he said, holding up both hands, "but it's kind of a long drive, and..."

Jake pinched one of the imported Mexican binder tabs and swung to a page where "reminders for Thursday" had been written in below "Five-year plan, part 32-1," spiky pencil marks scrawled across the neat lettering like ivy clinging to a wrought-iron fence.

"Pick ...up ...carsickness bags ...for Terry," he jotted in.

"Do you really have to say they're for me?"

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.

"It's not about power. I need something to hold it all together. I need Brooklyn."

Jake turned the coffee cup in his hand. "I can't."

"I was with my best friend when it happened."

The captain sat forward.

"Turns out just because you get adopted doesn't also make you a citizen. It's not automatic, and Charles was only partway through the process. My lawyer tells me we can get it done, but I have to actually be here to do it."

"That ...wasn't the kind of no I was expecting," said the captain.

"Me either. Who the hell threatens to deport a kid after all that?" The fires and famine. The snap. "But I have to wonder why you even thought of me for this. All I ever did was help you out apartment hunting that time."

"Well..."

"Wait," said a voice from the couch.

They turned around.

"I may not have showered in two weeks, but my hearing works fine. You're going after this Thunnos creep?"

"Thanos. Yes."

"I'm coming with you."

The captain looked at Jake. "You sure you're up for it, Gina?"

"Hell, I even got my own Spandie."

Captain America stared back. Brooklyn.

"Then suit up."

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	3. Stony

Stupid fucking ...dust storm, maybe? There was a funny buzzing in his bones and nerves out to his skin. The red of the world coalesced into ground and sky, and in the distance—

"Gamora? _Gamora!_ "

"Peter?"

He didn't feel his feet move; the space between just disappeared.

"I knew Nebula was lying! She—whoa!" Peter jumped back Gamora took a swing for his jaw.

"I did not want to be the cause of this, Peter!"

"Gamora—" he ducked another punch to his head "—I get you're mad, but right now I'm really _not_ sorry I didn't kill you." He dodged a sweep to his legs. "We've got to find Drax and Mantis and there were these two armor dudes—" She was working him into a corner. She could _always_ work him into a corner. He tried to duck and—

Her fist ran through his temple without connecting.

Gamora blinked and swung again, her hand moving straight through Peter's upraised arm.

Peter felt his stomach drop as she stared back at him.

He held up one hand. She did too.

Their fingers passed through each other like air.

"Oh," said Peter.

At least he knew what was happening. It was practically part of the Ravager code.

You get freedom. From law. From guilt. From civilization itself. But you get it _because_ you know what comes next. He'd expected Yondu's stories about canyons full of ice. He'd expected nonstop scratched-vinyl covers, white studio singers from the fifties butchering Motown. He'd expected maggots and pits of fire like in Sunday school.

Instead, here were Gamora's eyes like stones. Somewhere between Elvin Bishop and some unspoken thing, he'd learned to see what she was feeling. He could _see_ it. And he couldn't even hold her hand.

"Oh good," came a voice from behind them. "I was worried you wouldn't be here."

Peter's spine stiffened as he spun around. "Why couldn't they send you to a worse hell?" He looked left and right. "Where are you?"

"Sorry, I can't manifest visibly yet. This type of energy manipulation wasn't my forte."

Peter narrowed his eyes. There was a flicker in the air right about...

"Ow!" came Dr. Strange's voice. "How did you... Well I guess that's a good sign."

"Stop being an idiot and tell me what's going on," demanded Gamora, scowling as her hand went through Peter's shoulder.

"Gamora, that's the stupid-ass wizard guy who _gave_ Thanos the green thingie! And he had a creepy goatee."

"You handed over the time stone?"

" _It was necessary_ ," Goatee Guy clipped back. "And we're not in the afterlife, you idiot. We're in the soul stone."

"What?"

"We are inside the soul stone," he answered word-by-word. "Us and half the sentient population of the galaxy." The not-air whipped and something like a shadow of a pointing finger appeared where the wizard's voice was coming from. " _She_ 's visible because that is the price that the soul stone exacts from its wielder."

"Why we can't touch each other?" asked Peter.

"Because you have a body and she doesn't."

"The fuck you talking about?"

"Starlord," said Strange. "Thanos just used the Infinity Stones to murder half the galaxy."

"Yeah, and it's your fault, you capey creep!"

"Arguably," he replied. "But doesn't it occur to you to wonder why, among those trillions upon trillions of people sucked inside the infinity stone, you're the only one who's flesh and blood?"

Peter blinked.

"All those people," Strange repeated, "populating and fueling what's basically a giant mass of—"

"—celestial energy," Gamora finished.

Strange nodded.

"I can barely vibrate the matter around me enough to make words, and you grew yourself bones and a nervous system."

"Wait, are you saying I built myself a body like my dad did? You saying I can—" Peter looked at Gamora. "Can I get us out of here? I could— Shit." He closed his eyes. "Shit."

"What?"

"He said it would take me a couple million years to get good at it."

"Million," repeated the wizard.

"A _couple_ million." He looked down at his hands. It didn't ...feel like Ego's planet, where the energy had had a physical source deep underground. He breathed out, trying to let his mind go blank.

The tiniest flicker of red, small enough to be imaginary, leapt from Peter's right finger to his palm.

"I gave Thanos the time stone because that was the only way. If my plan is going to work," the wizard's outline was clearer, "we need someone, here on the inside, who can manipulate celestial energy."

Peter tried to get the spark to move again. No go.

"That's the downside of this plan. It takes an unremarkable mind—no offense."

"No, that's fair," said Peter. Gamora nodded.

"It takes a lifetime. We may all be at Thanos' mercy for eons until you can pull control of the soul stone away from him. I've searched this entire plane, beyond trillions of souls, but most people cannot gather the will to appear or speak. I don't think there's anyone who could help speed up the process. I'll be glad to give what instruction I can, but my expertise is more—"

"Excuse me!"

Peter looked over Goatee Guy's not-shoulder. Behind him, he could see a gray but clear shape of a short man with a pale, pielike face on his round head, one hand raised like he was asking a question in class.

"Sorry, but did I hear you say you'd looked everywhere?"

The wizard's shadow turned. "I ...yes. I did. How are you doing that?"

"I'm looking for my son. Have you seen him? He's about this tall. His name's Nicolaj. Wears glasses? Moved to New York from Latvia two years ago?"

"You..." the wizard flickered like a strobe light, like when he'd been going over the possibilities. "No. No I haven't met anyone like that."

"You're sure? You checked everywhere?"

"Everywhere. I'm sure."

The round man's shoulders dropped in relief. "Oh," he said. "Oh good. You hear that?" He called out, running off toward the horizon. "Genevieve, he's not here! Can you hear me, honey? He's not here! He's okay!"

"Come back here!" shouted the wizard.

"Sorry, I gotta get back to the others!"

" _What_ others?!"

Peter and Gamora looked at each other.

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	4. Giants

His name wasn't on any of the lists of the dead, but it wouldn't be, would it?

There was no sign of him, but that meant nothing for a master of deception. He could be regular dead, taken out by any of the rubes he'd outsmarted over the years—on _both_ sides of the law. Every time Jake picked up a case with the unmistakable whiff of style or an MO was just a little too cool, he'd wonder: Was it him?

Thanos' kills were rumored to cover the Winter Soldier, Spider Man, the King of Wakanda, probably that Iron Man guy.

Was the Pontiac Bandit one more legend gone to dust?

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	5. Replenish

"My CI in the Ianucci Family says Blond Tony is hiding out in Poughkeepsie."

"Jake and I should drive up there this weekend and check it out," said Rosa.

The captain nodded. "Half the mobsters in the city are using the snap to fake their own deaths. Good job, you two."

"Thanks, Terry. I mean—" Jake checked. "I mean, thank you, Captain Jeffords."

Terry grimaced. "I'm still not used to it either."

"Promotion made sense. The NYPD needed officers," said Rosa. "You're the only officer who didn't call out sick with the you-know-whats for the next five days."

"You all made fun of me but when that Thanos guy killed half the planet's life, that included all our symbiotic gut bacteria. Speaking of which," he pushed two containers across the desk.

"Uh, I'm good on yogurt, Captain," said Peralta.

He folded his arms. "Sergeant Terry may have let you live on cheese puffs, but Captain Jeffords has a probiotic a day policy! You will replenish your digestive microbes. I take care of my hardest-working teammates!"

"Does he mean us or the microbes because I don't know which one's weirder."

"Just eat them!"

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	6. Answering

"You got another call from Tina."

"Thank you, Rosa," said Jake. He flipped on the departmental answering machine.

"Hi Jake! Tina Boyle from the Council of Cousins here. I still need to talk to you about—" A beep sounded as Jake deleted the message.

"Was that Tina again?" asked Captain Jeffords. "You can't keep dodging him forever. Sooner or later he's going to bring lawyers into it."

Jake flipped a page on his case file. "He's better off here. He's sleeping through the night. His grades are back up. And he's down to asking me if Charles and Genevieve really are in _Latvian_ heaven and not the worse Bulgarian one only three times a week."

"He still sleeping on a pile of binders?" asked Rosa.

The page under Jake's fingers ripped. "No. We... I moved Amy's stuff."

"Look, you're great with Nicolaj, Jake," said Terry. "A lot better than I expected, really."

"Not better than I expected," someone marked cheerfully.

"Shut up, Hitchcock!" snapped Rosa. "No one cares about that stupid deadpool."

"Hey, I'm the one who bet he i _would_ /i still be alive in two weeks. You should be more supportive." Hitchcock lumbered off in a huff.

"We've all been through hell, but it's possible that the Boyles could provide a better environment," said Terry. "You need to be doing this because you want to hold onto Nicolaj and not because you think you're holding onto Charles."

Jake looked back at him.

"And if you _are_ going to do this? Maybe invite Tina out here for a visit. Let him _see_ how well Nicolaj is doing. It could save you a world of pain later. Maybe the three of you could go to one of those Boyle family reunions once Gina gets back from Wakandan space camp or wherever."

"Captain," said Rosa, looking at the still-empty administrator's desk.

"One way or another," Jake finished, "Gina's not coming back."


	7. The Call

"Just bring him with you."

"I can't take him out of the country until the legal stuff's finalized. Turns out citizenship is i _supposed_ /i to be automatic but Charles used the same lawyer for the adoption as for his divorce." Jake kicked a pebble across the precinct roof.

"Why did he keep going to that guy?"

"Ever since that metal-doom guy took over Latvia and changed the name, the state department's extra cagey about people from there." Just hearing her voice felt like a piece was back in place. It had been too long since he'd last gotten to rant about all this, and Wakanda had some damn fine cell phone coverage. "Doesn't help that replacing the two-toed sloths in in customs and immigration wasn't high on Congress' to-do list." Jake's sneakers screeched to a stop on the gravel. "Buuuut the NSA probably was so anyone monitoring this call, _please_ do not tell your friends at CIS to slow-track my nephew's permanent residency."

"I'm being serious, Jake! Come out and see what we're doing. Leaving Nicolaj with Terry for a week won't get your guardianship revoked."

"It's not just Nicolaj, Gina. Half the city's still crazy. Terry's doing okay, but he's way more hurt than he lets on and he needs help from people who know him well enough to see it. If he falls apart, we all fall apart. I'm worried if I leave the nine nine, there won't be anything for—" He stopped half a second too late.

There was a shrill silence on the other end of the line.

"Won't be anything what?" asked Gina.

"Nothing."

"Jake, were you going to say 'for them to come back to'?"

"No. That would be crazy."

"You can't lie to me, Peralta. As your not-sister and Nicolaj's actual adoptive stepsib once removed, let me remind you the name of the game: Avengers. Not Bring-backers. I'm not out here training with shaven-headed panther fangirls who won't shut up with the royal mourning because I think kicking Thanos' purple butt means I'm going to see Iggy or my mom again. Amy, Holt and Charles are gone, Jake."

Jake's phone felt heavy in his hand.

"Then what's the point?"


	8. Anomaly

Peter held out his hand for a shake. "I'm Peter Quill. They call me Starlord because I keep saving the galaxy." Gamora rolled her eyes.

"Charles Boyle," answered the stranger. "They call me Rim Job because of the way I can get a perfect salt crust on a margarita glass."

"I left Earth when I was ten, but I am still pretty sure that doesn't mean what you think."

"Point of fact, it does not," added Strange.

Peter's hand it passed through the stranger's without connecting. "How does that still feel clammy?" he asked.

"The Boyles are aggressively moist. That's how my cousin Torvald survived the 1994 Dutch Oven incident."

"Think," strange told the man, "in your time alive or here in the soul stone, have you experienced anything that might permanently warp your perception of time and space?"

"I was once attacked by giant sewer rats that ate all the cocaine from the 1986 New York Mets drug bust."

"What—How did that happen?"

"They got into the evidence locker."

"You ...never even learned basic meditation?"

"Well one time I taught yoga at a family reunion. That got pretty wild."

"Family!" Gamora flexed her fingers. "Could Peter and this man be related?"

Peter twisted around, "What?" just as the new guy shook his head with an "I don't think so."

"Think about it," she said. "Ego was trying to produce offspring that could use celestial energy. Maybe he impregnated Peter's mother because she—"

"—came from a sensitive bloodline!" finished Dr. Strange.

Gamora put her hands on her hips.

"Don't interrupt her when she talks," Peter muttered under his breath. Then, louder, "And come on, go easy with the 'impregnating my mom' bit."

All three of them stared at the new guy, who stared back tolerantly.

"No," said Strange.

"No."

"No," murmured Gamora.

"I didn't want to be rude, but the shape of his _head_ ," the stranger gestured to Peter.

"Hey!"


	9. Reason

Rosa nodded as Jake sat down. Hank had already set out their drinks.

"I got a question before Terry gets here."

"Yes that was me winning America's Got Talent. I never knew I could yodel."

"Why are you fighting Tina and Sam over Nicolaj? Charles' cousins all want him. He could just pick a state."

Jake took a drink. A long one.

"I was on the phone with Gina this afternoon."

"What she say?"

"Didn't matter." Jake stared into his beer. "Just hearing her voice was like my blood pressure going down."

Rosa turned her glass around in her fingers.

"He's family."

Jake looked back at Rosa through the dim lights.

The floorboards shook as Terry slid into the third seat. "Hey, guys," he said. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing, Captain," said Rosa, picking up her glass. "Just another Thursday."


	10. Moves

"Don't tell your teacher I told you this," said Jake, "but if he does it again, hit him back."

Nicolaj's hands tightened on his bookbag. "But..."

"He's going after you and not a kid in his own grade because he wants an easy target. You probably won't win the fight, but he'll learn coming after you is more trouble than it's worth."

"Papa always said to curl up into a ball and promise to bring even more lunch money the next day. And he would put the special wolf stuff on my shoes."

"Yeah..." Jake's eyes found the parenting book on the shelf next to Amy's crossword compilation. A kid could be bullied every day of his life and not get messed up from it if he had a whole heap of adults at home telling him the bully was the one with the problem.

Which was why the Boyles could be so submissive and keep smiling at the world that stepped on them like bubble wrap. There were just so many of them boiling over with support over every little thing that they drowned out anyone who called you a stupid Latverian.

Or there had been so many of them. Like Charles had said over his meatball sauce. If you didn't have enough of one ingredient, sometimes you had to change the whole recipe.

Jake grinned. "How about we visit Auntie Rosa's kickboxing club on Saturday and try some basics?"

Nicolaj brightened. "Can Lacey come?"

"We'll ask her dad."

That night, he picked up the phone.

"Tina? It's Jake."


	11. The Hard Stuff

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"It's just over this way," the round-face man—Charles— said over his shoulder.

"Detective Boyle, the interior of the soul stone is a class-II mental realm. Its only features are those imagined by its wielder, who, I'm sorry to say, probably isn't going to be Mr. Quill here for some time. There is no 'this way.'"

Peter looked at Gamora and tried not to notice how his footfalls made a sound and hers didn't. He wanted so hard to hold her hand as they walked ...even though the last time he'd tried to do that in public she'd punched him right out of his boots. Even though there was nothing to block the view, Peter had a feeling that there was something just out of sight.

"Things certainly got mental around here," his voice dropped. "And it was more 'type A' than 'class II.'"

There was a tapping, scratching sound up ahead.

"What is that noise and why do I hate it?" asked Peter.

Charles sighed. "You said you needed to learn how to tap into some magic energy manipulation thing before you can get us out of here, but it will take you a long time to learn _unless_ someone who's good with—" he breathed out "—sorry for using the f-word but _fools_ makes you stick to your five-year plan?"

"More like five thousand year plan, but that's the general idea," said Strange.

They rounded a bend, there suddenly being a bend to round, with a black, rectangular slate propped up against a boulder, and a disembodied white object pecking away like the multiverse's angriest hummingbird butting against a window. Suddenly there was a muttering sound that formed into, "quantum flux ... reminds me of the wow signal ... could've ... flowers ... but noooOOOOO _OOOOOO!_ " Charles winced as the pitch rose.

"A chalkboard?" asked Peter.

"Is that some kind of ...math demon?" asked Gamora, peering at the blackboard.

"No, she's just freaking out." Charles clapped his hands. " _Amy!_

The not-air reverberated. " ** _WHAT?_** "

"So ...intense," murmured Strange.

"Sorry to interrupt your, uh..." Charles gave up. "I brought you some people to meet."

"Can't meet people!" the voice snapped. "Only girls who get their work done get to meet people!" The chalk slipped against the slate again. As quietly as he could, Peter edged off to the side so he could see the blackboard full-on. Parts of it seemed to be covered with equations of the kind Yondu had saved him from by kidnapping him before he could take pre-algebra. It was mega-hard math, with the fancy squiggles that weren't numbers _or_ letters. That was promising. Unfortunately, the rest of the blackboard contained drawings of a dress labeled "I SAID TULIP SLEEVES, BITCH," a chart marked "study schedule-where did I go wrong?" and the word "lazypants" spelled five different ways over and over.

"All this happened because I didn't study hard enough. I know it!" there was an inward, wheezing noise. "I'm so sorry, universe! I killed you by watching half an episode of 'My Cat from Hell.' I shouldn't have cared whether Cleo and Mr. Squiggles would ever get along."

"Ma'am, you did not kill the universe," Dr. Strange said in what was probably the levelest tone he could muster. "In fact, the universe is still where it always was."

The chalk went completely still. "WHO SAID THAT?" said Amy.

"Uh, does she know she's invisible too?" Peter asked Charles.

" _She_ has a name!" hissed the voice. "Typical male perspective. You're probably wasting your mental energy staring at my boobs!"

"Don't take this the wrong way, lady, but I'm sure we'd all love for me to be staring at your boobs right now," said Peter. Gamora smacked him through the back of his head.

"Didn't hurt, still annoying," murmured Peter.

"You know who should be staring at my boobs? My fiance. I was getting married in two weeks. _EVERYONE_ should have been staring at my boobs in my wedding dress with GOD-DAMNED mermaid cut, _especially_ my stupid cousin Sophia!"

"Amy," said Charles, "I know there's no joy in life quite like the sight of your cousin's boobs—"

Peter and Gamora winced in unison.

"—but we need to focus on the problem at hand."

"I miss my hand," the voice was lower now, "I miss my feet. I miss my head. And I miss New York and I miss Jake..." the voice trailed off.

"There there," said Charles, voice as steady as a hand on the shoulder. "Jake is okay. I saw him not dissolve as I was dissolving."

"He's not okay. He's probably eating nothing but cheese puffs and opening childproof bottles with our meat cleaver again."

Strange's shadow moved to give the suggestion of a man rubbing his beard. "It seems this woman's ...vibrant anxiety about her obligations has given her the mental focus to partially manifest. I suppose it couldn't hurt to see if she can help Mr. Quill. Ma'am," he addressed the space near the chalk, "do you have any teaching experience?"

"I was voted most likely to be mentioned by name in a mentee's suicide note in the NYPD Star-Achieving Mentors Star-Achieving Mentees program."

"Beggars can't be choosers," said Gamora, stepping up. She held out her hand as if for a shake. "My friend Peter may have the capacity to manipulate the celestial energy that makes up this realm and eventually free us all, but he does not have the discipline or training to make use of his talents. Would you, along with Dr. Strange, help him?"

The voice started very small. " _...Amydoworksolveproblem?_ "

"Yes," said Charles.

The space where Amy's body should have been transformed like a bowl of pebbles being flipped over, "Okay!" the voice was suddenly peppy and cheerful. "You know what the say, 'If you want to understand impossible hellscapes, learn calculus.' Binders!" chirped Amy, with a sound like clapping hands. "We'll need lots of binders!"

 _"I know all about binders," said Charles. "So many of the Boyle men wear them because of our motherly chest physique."_

 _Amy's space seemed to shift attention back to Peter. "What did you say your name was?"_

"I'm Peter Quill, but people call me Sta—"

"I DON'T GIVE A SHIT, MAGGOT," there was a cracking sound. Peter stumbled back, falling into a desk chair that hadn't been there a second before.

"Amazing," murmured Strange.

"YOU WILL LEARN. YOU WILL STUDY. YOU WILL FEEL PAIN IN BRAIN CELLS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD."

"What—"

"She's usually quite lovely, I promise!" said Charles.

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End file.
